A quick look at ENS v2 in one minute: Redefining Ethereum naming service?

Author: ChainFeeds

The ENS v2 plan is not only to migrate part of the protocol, but also to redesign the architecture from scratch.

Yesterday ENS Labs announced the launch of the ENS v2 plan, which aims to expand the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to Layer 2 and reduce Gas fees by migrating some of ENS's core functions to Layer2. As early as 2020, the ENS team began to explore solutions for combining ENS with L2. Over the past four years, the team's work has ranged from building standard interfaces to enable L2 to interact with ENS to developing its own dedicated L2, and discussions around these solutions have continued.

ENS has not only received attention from the community, but also received strong support from Vitalik Buterin. In the Ethereum developer survey, Vitalik explicitly stated that he would use ENS to manage his name on the Status app. He once said that ENS is one of the most successful non-financial applications, and called on all Layer2 on social media that they should work on developing CCIP resolvers to register, update and read ENS subdomains directly on Layer2.

ENS Introduction

ENS is a distributed, open and extensible naming system built on Ethereum. It aims to provide users in the Ethereum ecosystem with readable domain names that can be used for identification and interaction. It maps human-readable names (such as example.eth) to machine-readable identifiers, such as Ethereum addresses, other cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, metadata, etc. ENS supports "reverse resolution", and users can also query related metadata through a given Ethereum address.

Similar to the traditional Internet domain name system, ENS allows users to map complex Ethereum addresses to easy-to-remember domain names. With ENS, users can use concise domain names to receive cryptocurrency payments, access DApps, and perform other Ethereum-related operations. These domain names are owned by smart contracts of different registrars, which specify the rules for name allocation. For example, the ETH registrar is responsible for the .eth domain name, allowing trusted decentralized names to be issued as tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Registration is completed through smart contracts, and name ownership is guaranteed by the Ethereum blockchain.

In addition, ENS supports subdomains, which means that the owner of the domain name can control the resolution process. For example, Alice owns alice.eth, then she can create a subdomain pay.alice.eth under this domain name, and can configure and manage it according to her needs.

What are the changes in ENS v2?

The ENS v2 plan is not only to migrate part of the protocol, but also to redesign the architecture from scratch. ENS v2 will achieve:

• Reduced Gas Fees:By migrating core functions such as registration and renewal of .eth domain names to Layer 2, the gas fees associated with these operations can be significantly reduced, making ENS more affordable and faster.

• Introducing a new architectural design:ENS v2 plans to introduce a hierarchical registration system, and each .eth domain name will have its own personal registry. This means that each .eth domain name will have an independent record for storing information related to the domain name (such as ownership transfer history) and configuration (such as creating subdomains), and users can better control the ownership of their domain names, thereby enhancing flexibility and customization.

• Improve multi-chain interoperability:After migrating ENS to Layer 2, .eth domain names will be more smoothly integrated into various blockchains. By using CCIP-Read Gateway (a service that allows Ethereum domain names to perform read operations on other blockchain networks) and compatible resolvers, users' .eth domain names can achieve trustless connections between different networks.

The team has begun to evaluate which solution is more suitable, Layer 2 or customized L2 for ENS migration, and has begun to develop a gradual migration plan and timetable. At the same time, it will submit a proposal to the ENS DAO to execute a funding request in the next few weeks to support ENS Labs in the development and deployment of ENS v2.